


Dreams Past

by whitefang (radialarch)



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Episode: s01e06 Flight Risk, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:54:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/whitefang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene Adler: a ghost better left alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams Past

**Author's Note:**

> Utterly reflexive fic because IRENE.

"I know about Irene. I want you to tell me about her."

Sherlock stands still. Breathes. "She's a dream," he says. "That's all you need to know."

"Sherlock!"

"What do you want to hear?" Sherlock snaps. "Have you spun out some sort of tragedy in your head? A broken heart and subsequent spiral downwards? How predictable of you, Watson, really."

"I didn't—" Watson blinks and starts over. "I just want the truth, all right?"

"No-one ever wants to know the truth; it interferes too much with their stories."

*

He still remembers the tail of Irene’s coat fluttering through a Heathrow terminal for the last flight, and his phone vibrating soon after, a text:

> [number blocked]
> 
> Good-night, Mr. Holmes ;)

And when steel around his wrists and grounding hand in his hair hadn't been enough to drown out the bitterness of losing, he'd convinced himself to shoot up and catch the next plane to New Jersey.

They meet once, in New York City; or, rather, he sees her, careless and carefree and _married_ , with no trace of England anywhere on her being, and he finally accepts that he might have failed.

His father orders him to come home; but he’s ceded London as a battleground by then.

*

"What does she mean to you?" Watson asks.

"It doesn't matter," Sherlock says. "Let her be."


End file.
